Crater Lake National Park

Top Attractions

Rim Drive

You're guaranteed some unforgettable sights on the Rim Drive

After visiting one or both of the visitor centres the Rim Drive is what most people head for. It offers around 30 scenic overlooks and some good picnic areas. (Trailers and other oversize vehicles not recommended on east Rim Drive.)

Begin your tour by parking in Rim Village and strolling to the Sinnott Memorial Overlook, a prime vantage point directly over the lake. It's an awe inspiring view...

The intense blue of Crater Lake is due to its great depth and clarity. Sunlight is able to penetrate deep into the water. The depth absorbs many of the longer rays of the light spectrum and reflects the shorter rays. Since violet and blue light are the shortest wavelengths, they get scattered and reflected back to us, giving the lake its famous blue color. Scientists have found green algae growing at a record 725 feet below the surface, indicating that sunlight may penetrate deeper here than in any other body of water in the world.

To begin your tour, set your car's odometer at zero (or note the setting) as you leave Rim Village parking lot. Head west or clockwise around the lake, and be careful: The road is narrow and has sharp curves. Watch out for bikers and pedestrians.

Turn right at 0.1 mile for Rim Drive. The first stop (mile 1.3) brings you near Discovery Point, where, on June 12, 1853, a group of prospectors searching for a gold mine happened upon the lake, which they named Deep Blue Lake. Indians, believing the lake sacred, had told no outsiders about it. Hillman Peak, to the far left on the rim, is named for one of the prospectors. The peak is a 70,000-year-old volcano—one of the compact cluster of overlapping volcanic cones that formed Mount Mazama. It was cleaved in half when the summit collapsed. At 1,975 feet Rabbit brush at Cleetwood Cove above the water, it forms the highest point on the rim.

The overlook at mile 4 offers a good view of Wizard Island, named for its resemblance to a sorcerer's hat. Rising 764 feet above the surface of the lake, Wizard Island is a classic cinder cone—built of red-hot cinders ejected from the caldera floor sometime after Mount Mazama collapsed. An Indian legend portrays the island as the head of Llao, Chief of the Below World. Skell, Chief of the Above World, killed and dismembered Llao in the final, literally earth-shattering battle waged on the mountaintop. Time and weather permitting, you'll enjoy superb views in every direction if you take the moderately steep 4/5-mile trail that leads from here to the fire tower on The Watchman (8,013 feet) south of the overlook.

Back in your car, turn away from the lake at the Mount Thielsen Overview on the left. A plaque identifies the major landmarks of the countryside. When the road forks at North Junction (mile 6.1), bear right to remain on Rim Drive. Straight, the road leads to the North Entrance.

Steel Bay (mile 8.8) commemorates William Gladstone Steel, who dedicated his fortune and career to making Crater Lake a national park. Steel became fascinated by the lake when he read about it in a newspaper used to wrap his school lunch. Seventeen years of lobbying, culminating in a personal appeal to President Theodore Roosevelt, succeeded in making it the country's sixth national park in 1902. The tireless Steel stocked the lake with fish and led the efforts to build Rim Drive and the Crater Lake Lodge.

An amazing view of a mist filled Crater.

Six miles farther on, pull off the road at Skell Head for another excellent view of the entire lake. Mount Scott, highest point in the park, looms ahead as you drive on toward Cloudcap; it may have been the oldest of Mount Mazama's volcanic cones. Bear right (mile 17.4) for the short spur road to Cloudcap, Rim Drive's highest overlook (7,960 feet). Phantom Ship, an island to the southwest, consists of 400,000-year-old lava flows from the extinct Phantom cone. Dwarfed by the surrounding cliffs, it nevertheless stands 160 feet above the water.

Circle back to Rim Drive and turn right. For a closer look at Phantom Ship, which in some lights seems to vanish and reappear, stop at Kerr Notch (mile 23.2), one of the U-shaped valleys carved by a glacier before Mount Mazama exploded. A road here leads to The Pinnacles, spires of hardened volcanic ash. Just after Kerr Notch, bear right to stay on Rim Drive.

At mile 31.2 you can stretch your legs on the Castle Crest Wildflower Trail. This fragrant 2-mile loop begins in a forest of mountain hemlock and red fir, then enters a meadow run riot with flowers, many of them identified by plaques. Watch your step—the wet rocks can be slippery.

From here you can either proceed back to Rim Village or, if time permits, turn left toward Oreg. 62 and after 2.5 miles park on the left for a final stroll through Godfrey Glen Trail, an easy, 1-mile-loop accessible-nature trail. The path leads through forest that developed on a flow of pumice and ash 250 feet thick. The fluted pinnacles on the walls of the gorges began as the same material, but hot gases seeped up from within the Earth and hardened these areas. They defied erosion as the creeks formed canyons.

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